Mid-wage jobs shrivel up with the recession

BusinessInsider.com calls attention to a troubling study that highlights what many people already know: “The market for middle class jobs has shrunk and most of the jobs that have been created during the recession are in low-income areas like retail and food services.”

A new study by the National Employment Law Project confirms the troubling trend. NELP “broke down jobs into low/ middle/and high-wage groups based on median incomes,” according to BusinessInsider.com. “Looking at the period from early 2008 through the first quarter of 2012,” the study found the following:

“High-wage" occupations accounted for 19% of the jobs lost during the Great Recession and 20% of the jobs gained during the recovery.

"Mid-wage" occupations suffered 60% of job losses during the recession but only 22% of the growth during the recovery.

"Low-wage" occupations accounted for 21% of the losses and a whopping 58% of the growth.

"In short, America's good jobs deficit continues," NELP said in a summary of the study. "Policymakers have understandably been focused on the urgent goal of getting U.S. employment back to where it was before the recession…but our findings underscore that job quality is rapidly emerging as a second front in the struggling economy."

Among the reasons for this, according to BusinessInsider.com: globalization, which has sent manufacturing jobs overseas; the bursting of the housing market, which “crushed the construction industry;” and deep cuts in state and local governments, “which accounts for 485,000 mainly mid-wage jobs lost since February 2011.”

It would be a great moment in the presidential debates if one of the moderators got President Obama and Mitt Romney to go beyond platitudes about how the country might fix this problem. Tax cuts (Mr. Romney's solution to everything) won't do it, and the president hasn't even tried to explain a vision for raising the quality of work in America.
For the health of it

The Clinic's Program in Medical Humanities “provides experiences for medical students to understand medicine from many perspectives through exploration of the ethical, historical and societal implications of their work in caring for others,” according to the foundation. The curriculum “includes two years of writing, reflecting and community projects designed to help these future doctors maintain their deep empathy for patients during their intensive science-based education experience,” the Cleveland Foundation said.

With the grant support, the program is launching an initiative that will involve Cleveland Clinic medical students “working with local artists, academics and community leaders to construct stories of health and well-being in Cleveland,” according to the foundation. The Healthy Cleveland Story Center “will use the arts, student projects and bridge-building community events that will enable Lerner College students to work side-by-side with the people they'll one day care for as doctors.”

Martin Kohn, Ph.D., director of the Cleveland Clinic Program in Medical Humanities, said in a statement, “We know that the arts and humanities provide our students with much-needed perspective during their science-intensive education. By partnering with local artists and others in the community, we hope to enrich our neighborhoods while making our students better doctors and researchers.”

Robert Eckardt, executive vice president of the Cleveland Foundation, added, “We believe the artistic interaction between the medical students and the community will help create a healthier Cleveland.”

Willing to make some tradeoffs

Not quite sure I believe this, but 45% of working adults “are willing to give up some percentage of their salary for more flexibility at work,” according to this story from Staffing Industry Analysts.

The story is based on a survey released Aug. 30 by Mom Corps, a national flexible staffing firm.

“Working adults were willing to relinquish 8.6 percent of their salary compared to 5.8 percent (in) last year's survey,” Staffing Industry Analysts reports. (That's the part I find particularly shocking, since 8.6% is a lot of pay. I might buy, say, 2% or 3%, but this seems really high. Maybe people are doing better financially than I perceive.)

In the meantime, 67% of working adults agreed that it is possible to "have it all" when it comes to work-life balance, and there is no significant difference here between women (68%) and men (66%).

About 53% of working adults reported they would get more work done if they had the ability to work from home occasionally; 62% of 18- to 34-year-olds agreed.

The story notes that 60% of working adults agree that the state of the economy has no impact on their desire for increased flexibility at work.